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Abstract

Discipline and cohesiveness of political parties are essential for legislatures to
engage in policy-making. Parties in Brazil have historically been considered ideologically
weak and uninvolved in policy issues of national importance. Analyses of roll-call
votes, however, have shown that parties can be disciplined government supporters.
This paper tests the claim that Brazilian parties have also become programmatic actors
in their own right. The paper uses statutory delegation content to test whether voting
discipline translates into greater influence on the substance of legislation. The
data analysis shows that party unity among parties of the government coalition does
not affect statutory content. Opposition parties, by contrast, are more likely to
reduce the executive’s discretion when they are more unified. Overall, the support
for the hypothesis of programmatic parties is weak, given that executive authorship
is the strongest determinant of statutory content.